How to Remove Qtipr.com “Virus”

Many users are commonly disturbed by an intrusive browser hijacker named Qtipr.com “Virus” , which is flooding them with different advertisements and imposing some strange changes to their Chrome, Firefox or IE browser. If you are one of them, then the article that you are about to read may give you a permanent solution to your disturbance. In the next few lines, we will be explaining what exactly Qtipr.com “Virus” can do to your machine, how it has snuck inside your system and how to effectively uninstall it and remove all the changes that it has probably initiated without your approval. So, let’s begin.

Do you know what a browser hijacker is?

Before you get your hands on the removal guide and uninstall Qtipr.com “Virus” , let us first tell you what exactly this browser hijacker is about and what risks it may pose to your machine. Generally, a browser hijacker is any software, which initiates some modifications to your browser (it could be the replacement of your homepage or search engine or some unstoppable page redirects) and exposes you to a huge amounts of undesired advertisement content of different forms. In most of the cases, it does that without your approval, and aggressively takes over your default browser (be it Chrome, Firefox, IE, or another) by flooding it with annoying and very intrusive ads of specific products, services or offers. The bad thing is that you can’t do much about it to stop that invasion, and the only option to fully eliminate the annoying program and the disturbance it creates is to fully remove it from your system. Many users reach that point once they realize they cannot handle the huge amount of advertising materials they are exposed to, and this heavily interferes with their normal browsing.

But are the browser hijackers some kind of computer viruses and are they really harmful?

You’ve probably come across web locations where programs like Qtipr.com “Virus” may be referred to as dangerous viruses or some sort of malware. However, this is not really correct. Browser hijackers are certainly not as malicious as real viruses or threats like Trojans and Ransomware. They do not contain harmful scripts and are not programmed to corrupt your system, destroy your files or compromise your security. Still, they could be potentially unwanted on your machine and there are a few reasons for that. Let’s find out why.

Qtipr.com “Virus” could be potentially unwanted.

Keeping a browser hijacker on your computer may not be fatal, but may not be beneficial either. This type of software may keep disturbing your online activity with its ads, sponsored web pages and unauthorized browser changes. You may not be able to load the pages that you want and your activity may constantly get interrupted by tens of popping messages and new tabs every now and then. The tricky thing is that you can never be sure how safe all these randomly generated ads are and whether you will bump into some nasty threats like Ransomware or some viruses if you happen to click on them. On top of that, Qtipr.com “Virus” may monitor your browsing history, your bookmarks and everything you search for on the web and use this data to match its ads with your searches or send it to different online advertisers as valuable marketing information. Many people may not be OK with that idea, especially when there is hardly anything beneficial for them and the only thing they are getting is a flow of unstoppable page redirects and aggressive advertisements. The owners of the hijacker, however, may earn a lot of money out of the ads through the infamous Pay-Per-Click scheme, which brings them profits for every click or sale they make.

How to protect your system from browser hijackers?

As most potentially unwanted software, browser hijackers usually come in a bundle with some appealing program or a free application which users would gladly install on their PC. That’s why, it is a good idea to always check any bundle that you are about to install, so you won’t regret it later. Use the “Advaced/Cusotm” option during the installation for that, and carefully read the EULA. Also, avoid clicking on spam, emails with unknown attachments, randomly popping ads with too-good-to-be-true offers, free downloads from non-reputed web locations, automatic installers or sketchy content. These are more likely to contain some potentially unwanted program like Qtipr.com “Virus” , so it is best if you stick to safe and reputed software sources to avoid close interaction with them.

How to Remove Qtipr.com “Virus”

I

Before you begin completing the steps from the following guide, we advise you to place a bookmark on this page or have it opened on a separate device since some of the following steps will require you to close your browser.

Open the Task Manger by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Go to the processes/details Tab and take a look at the resulting list. If you see a process with the name of the unwanted program or looks shady, right-click on it and select Open File Location. If you believe it is part of the infection, delete the files.

III

Use the Winkey+R key combination to open the Run window and in the search field type appwiz.cpl. Hit Enter and in the resulting list, look for recently installed programs that look potentially unwanted. If you find anything – uninstall it.

IV

Re-open Run and this tie type msconfig. Hit Enter again and in the resulting window, go to the Startup tab. See if there are any shady programs there and if anything looks suspicious uncheck it and then select OK.

V

In the Start Menu search field, copy-paste the following line: notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts . Open the first result and look at the bottom of the file where it says “Localhost”. If there are any IP addresses below that, tell us what they are in the comments since they might be coming from the unwanted software.

VI

Type Network Connections in the Windows search field and click on the first result. Right-click on the adapter that you are using at the moment and go to Properties > Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP) > Properties.

If the DNS line is not set to Obtain DNS server automatically, make sure to check that option.

Now go to Advanced > DNS tab and remove everything in DNS server addresses, in order of use.

VII

Right-click on your browser’s icon and select Properties. Delete everything in Target that is after .exe”.

For Chrome users

Close Chrome and go to this folder: C:/Users/*Your username*/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data. Change the name of the Default folder to Backup Default. Re-open Chrome.

For Firefox users

Open Firefox and click on the Main Menu > Add-ons > Extensions. If you see anything suspicious there, remove it.

For IE users

When you open the browser, go to Tools > Manage Ad-ons and remove the unwanted software if you see it there. Next, go to Tools > Internet options and change the homepage URL to whatever you are normally using.

VIII

Open Run (Winkey+R), type Regedit and click on OK. Next, press Ctrl+F and type the malware name. Hit Enter and delete everything that gets found.

If there are no results from the search, manually visit those folders in the Registry Editor.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Main

If you find there any suspicious keys that have names with a lot of random letters and numbers, delete them or if you are not sure, tell us in the comments what you saw.